A longitudinal study of math skills in heritage bilingual children: profiles of strengths and weaknesses.

Many children are exposed to a heritage language in the home context, and they learn mathematics in the school context in the societal language (Italian in the present study). More evidence is needed on how Heritage Bilinguals (HBs) perform in different subtypes of numeracy and mathematics skills in a longitudinal perspective. This longitudinal study aimed to analyze the mathematical skills of heritage bilingual children.

Socioeconomic status, linguistic skills and language background differentially relate to preschoolers' emotional and behavioural profile.

Background: Proximal and distal factors interact to shape children's development and well-being. The present study aimed to examine socioeconomic status (SES), linguistic skills, and language background as concurrent predictors of socio-emotional and behavioural outcomes in heritage bilingual and monolingual children attending preschool.

Methods: Parents of 1810 children (mean age = 63.

Parents' and Children's Emotional Well-Being and Language Beliefs in Heritage Bilingual Families.

The present study aimed to examine how parents' psychological characteristics and positive beliefs about multilingualism predict children's emotional well-being in 51 multilingual families with an immigrant background. Parents were interviewed to assess their beliefs about multilingualism and completed a battery of questionnaires assessing depression, anxiety, psychological distress, parental competence, quality of life, and acculturative stress. They also completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which assessed their children's socio-emotional and behavioral characteristics.

Home Learning Environment and Screen Time Differentially Mediate the Relationship Between Socioeconomic Status and Preschoolers' Learning and Behavioural Profiles.

Environmental variables related to the home context, including home literacy and numeracy, screen exposure and Socioeconomic Status (SES) are potential risks or protective factors for children's academic achievements and behaviour. The present multi-informant study aims to contribute to this issue by investigating SES's direct and indirect relationships in early learning (i.e.

Oral language predictors of word reading and spelling: A cross-linguistic comparison in bilingual and monolingual children.

The current study investigated linguistic predictors of word reading and spelling skills in a cross-linguistic comparison (French vs. Italian) in heritage bilinguals (HBs) and their monolingual peers. The sample included 265 children (French: n = 113; 67 monolinguals and 46 HBs; Italian: n = 152; 82 monolinguals and 70 HBs) attending Grades 3, 4, and 5 while performing oral language, reading, and spelling tasks.

Eye-Movements in a Text Reading Task: A Comparison of Preterm Children, Children with Dyslexia and Typical Readers.

Preterm birth is associated with weaknesses in reading skills that are usually less severe than those of children with dyslexia. To understand the characteristics of reading processes in preterm children, we adopted a cross-population and multi-modal approach comparing eye movements in reading tasks among three groups: children with preterm birth, children with a diagnosis of dyslexia, and children with typical development. The study involved 78 participants (10.

The relationship between mind wandering and reading comprehension: A meta-analysis.

Mind wandering (MW), a shift of attention away from external tasks toward internally generated thoughts, has been frequently associated with costs in reading comprehension (RC), although with some contrasting results and many reported potential intervening factors. The aim of the meta-analysis was to evaluate the relationship between MW and RC, considering the role of participants' and text's characteristics, as well as methodological issues in the measurement of the two constructs. From a set of 25 selected full texts (73 correlation coefficients), pooled correlation (r = -0.

Literacy Acquisition Trajectories in Bilingual Language Minority Children and Monolingual Peers with Similar or Different SES: A Three-Year Longitudinal Study.

Bilingualism and socio-economic status (SES) differentially affect linguistic and cognitive development. However, less evidence has been collected regarding their impact on literacy trajectories. The present longitudinal study evaluated the literacy development of language minority bilingual children (LMBC) and monolingual peers with different SES.

Home Literacy and Numeracy Interact and Mediate the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Early Linguistic and Numeracy Skills in Preschoolers.

This longitudinal study aimed at evaluating the relationships between socio-economic status (SES) and early literacy and numeracy skills, testing home literacy and home numeracy as mediators. It also investigated the interaction of home literacy and numeracy on early literacy and numeracy skills. The study involved 310 preschool children attending the second and the third year.

The Relationship of Reading Abilities With the Underlying Cognitive Skills of Math: A Dimensional Approach.

Math and reading are related, and math problems are often accompanied by problems in reading. In the present study, we used a dimensional approach and we aimed to assess the relationship of reading and math with the cognitive skills assumed to underlie the development of math. The sample included 97 children from 4th and 5th grades of a primary school.

Symbolic versus non-symbolic training for improving early numeracy in preschoolers at risk of developing difficulties in mathematics.

Background: Children's understanding of symbolic (e.g., Arabic digits) and non-symbolic (e.

Predictors of Children's Early Numeracy: Environmental Variables, Intergenerational Pathways, and Children's Cognitive, Linguistic, and Non-symbolic Number Skills.

Early numeracy skills in preschool years have been found to be related to a variety of different factors, including Approximate Number System (ANS) skills, children's cognitive and linguistic skills, and environmental variables such as home numeracy activities. The present study aimed to analyze the differential role of environmental variables, intergenerational patterns, children's cognitive and linguistic skills, and their ANS in supporting early math skills. The sample included 64 children in their last year of kindergarten and one parent of each child.

Magnitude Comparisons, Number Knowledge and Calculation in VeryPreterm Children and Children With Specific Learning Disability: A Cross-Population Study Using Eye-Tracking.

Difficulties in mathematics have been described in very preterm children, but their origins are not well understood and may differ from other populations with specific learning disability. Very preterm children, children with learning disability, and typically developing children were compared in mathematics skills, using standardized tools, experimental tasks, and eye-tracker measures. We assessed symbolic and nonsymbolic magnitude comparisons, number knowledge, calculation, as well as cognitive skills of 103 Italian-speaking fourth and fifth graders.

Which Measures Better Discriminate Language Minority Bilingual Children With and Without Developmental Language Disorder? A Study Testing a Combined Protocol of First and Second Language Assessment.

Purpose This study aimed to assess a protocol for the evaluation of developmental language disorder (DLD) in language minority bilingual children (LMBC). The specific aims were (a) to test group differences, (b) to evaluate the discriminant validity of single measures included in the protocol, and (c) to define which model of combined variables had the best results in terms of efficacy and efficiency. Method Two groups of LMBC were involved, one with typical development ( = 35) selected from mainstream schools and one with DLD ( = 20).

Rumination and Emotional Profile in Children with Specific Learning Disorders and Their Parents.

Rumination, namely a cognitive process characterized by a repetitive thinking focused on negative feelings and thoughts, is a significant predictor for the onset of internalizing symptoms and has also been found to run in families. Rumination has never been studied in children with specific learning disorders (SLD), a population that, due to its condition, might encounter more difficulties in daily life and is at risk of increased psychological distress, compared to typically developing (TD) peers. The present study covers this gap by examining whether children with SLD, and their parents, tend to use rumination more than TD peers and their parents.

Teachers, not parents, are able to predict time processing skills in preschoolers.

Time processing difficulties are associated with developmental disorders. Questionnaires for assessing children's sense of time are available from primary school, but we lack valid proxy-report tools for younger children, who are not able to complete self-reports. This study aimed to assess the criterion validity of a questionnaire investigating preschoolers' sense of time from the points of view of their parents and teachers.

Parenting Stress and Broader Phenotype in Parents of Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Dyslexia or Typical Development.

In the present study parenting stress and the broader phenotype are investigated in two highly common developmental disorders, namely Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and specific reading impairment (dyslexia). Within a total sample of 130 parents, 27 were parents of children with ADHD (P-ADHD), 38 were parents of children with a diagnosis of dyslexia (P-DYS) and the other 65 participants were parents of children with typical development (P-TD). A battery of cognitive tasks was administered which included verbal and non-verbal Intellectual Quotient (IQ), reading speed (passage and nonwords), verbal fluency and the Attention Network Task (ANT).

The profile of very preterm children on academic achievement. A cross-population comparison with children with specific learning disorders.

Background: Very preterm (VPT) children showed delays in reading, spelling and maths, but their academic achievement profile is not clearly understood.

Aims: VPT children were compared with children with specific learning disorders (SLD) and typically developing (TD) children on academic achievement, considering cognitive and linguistic phenotypic markers. A learning profile analysis was also performed.

Creativity Style and Achievements: An Investigation on the Role of Emotional Competence, Individual Differences, and Psychometric Intelligence.

Psychometric and emotional intelligence are considered as two separate theoretical constructs, although each one has been found to correlate to a certain degree with measures of creativity. The aim of the present study was to analyze whether individual differences such as age and gender, together with psychometric intelligence and emotional competence (EC) predicted creativity. We selected a sample of 376 participants aged 12-88 (mean age = 30.

Mind wandering, together with test anxiety and self-efficacy, predicts student's academic self-concept but not reading comprehension skills.

Background: Mind wandering (MW) has commonly been linked to bad scholastic performance; however, such association has rarely been investigated in the classroom. Moreover, in examining such association, motivational variables have been largely ignored.

Aim: We aimed at examining the associations between the dispositional tendency to engage in MW and a series of reading comprehension skills and measures of academic self-concept above and beyond the role of sex, age, test anxiety, self-efficacy, and self-regulation strategies.

Verbal and Nonverbal Anticipatory Mechanisms in Bilinguals.

Empirical evidence collected so far has revealed that the bilingual advantage cannot be reduced to a single component of the executive functioning, and point to the need to understand the effects of bilingual experience on cognition as influencing a wider family of mental processes, including, but not limited to, cognitive control. The present study aims to explore a relatively underinvestigated domain of bilingual cognitive processes, namely anticipation, through a series of different paradigms tapping proactive and reactive mechanisms at different levels of cognitive complexity and linguistic components. The sample included 25 adult bilinguals ([Formula: see text] years) and 25 monolinguals ([Formula: see text] years) matched for age, gender, and non-verbal IQ.

Exploring the Use of a Humanoid Robot to Engage Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).

We present a study aimed at exploring whether a humanoid robot may improve the effectiveness of educational interventions targeting children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Preliminary results with three preschool children with ASD indicate that interacting with a humanoid robot may facilitate engagement and goal achievement in educational activities.

In few words: linguistic gap but adequate narrative structure in preschool bilingual children.

The aim of this study was to compare linguistic and narrative skills of monolingual and bilingual preschoolers and to estimate linguistic predictors of the macro-structural level of narratives. A battery of linguistic measures in Italian was administered to sixty-four Monolinguals and sixty-four Early Bilinguals; it included Vocabulary, Phonological Awareness, Morphosyntactic Comprehension, Phonological Memory, Letter Knowledge, and Story Sequencing tasks. The narratives produced in the Story Sequencing task were coded.

English as a Foreign Language in Bilingual Language-minority Children, Children with Dyslexia and Monolingual Typical Readers.

The present study was aimed at investigating literacy skills in English as a foreign language in three different groups of children: monolinguals with dyslexia (n = 19), typically developing bilinguals (language-minority) (n = 19) and a control group of monolinguals (Italian) (n = 76). Bilinguals were not expected to fail in English measures, and their gap with monolinguals would be expected to be limited to the instructional language, owing to underexposure. All participants were enrolled in Italian primary schools (fourth and fifth grades).